The Brazilian Grand Prix

So I spent my first weekend away at the Brazilian Grand Prix. This meant for me anyway, really early starts both days, but I managed to handle them rather well. A lack of sleep on the flight meant I got to bed early Friday evening and was up by 6.30am on the Saturday to go to qualifying and after a quick breakfast at the hotel we were on our way to the track. We travelled on a bus put on from the hotel to the track and they knew exactly which route to take to avoid the traffic. We were there in about half an hour. By this time it had started raining and the weather was looking pretty glum for most of the day. I’d brought my water bottle to take into the track, turns out that type of thing is definitely not allowed! I didn’t want to throw it away, fortunately the bus was still open and we could put it back there.



Once inside we were in the ‘A’ grandstand, which is the long one that follows most of the early part of the home straight at Interlagos. Even with the wet weather we had to go a fair way down to get a high up seat to enable us to see more of the infield. Thankfully we also had a TV screen visible from our spot, which is vital to keep track of what is happening. There was an F3 support race at first with some quite amateur driving, followed by Formula 1 Free Practice 3. Ear plugs were absolutely necessary for this! Even though it was wet plenty of drivers were out doing laps due to the likely hood of qualifying being wet. After this there was a 2 hour gap until Qualifying with no support races in between. The weather started to clear up and then a little while before Qualifying was due it started to rain for a while just to make the track wet again and to make the following session more interesting. Nothing particularly unexpected happened in Q1 and Q2, although in Q3 the Williams were really quick! At first I thought Barrichello had got pole! It was difficult to make out who was who on the big screen, it turned out to be Hulkenberg, I didn’t realise just how much faster he was till later. We headed straight back after qualifying even though there was a Porsche race on afterwards. Once again the trip was traffic free.



We didn’t do so much on Saturday evening, just found somewhere to get food, and Renato had a meeting. I installed Rosetta Stone in an effort to pick up some basic Portuguese, however I gave up half way through the first lesson! I couldn’t even remember the few words it was trying to get me to learn.


Sunday was an even earlier start at 5.30am, and heading to the track it was a glorious warm morning without a cloud in the sky. We got to the track and the line to get in was really quite long and growing every minute. Thankfully it was moving quickly and we were inside the track with time to find a good seat before the first support race. We debated whether to sit low down nearer the start line or a higher up further back down the straight. In the end we chose the latter, as it gave a better view overall.


The final F3 race was first up and there was a bit of controversy with that. The championship leader started from the back, and his rival from the front. The points were so close that whoever finished ahead won. The champ leader fought through the field and then overtook his rival in a rather touring car style barging his way through. His rival dropped back and eventually picked up a puncture. It turned out the race officials gave the championship leader a time penalty due to his conduct in his pass, but he was still ahead of the other chap even with this penalty and kept the title. Imagine how controversial that would be in F1!
We had a couple of Porsche support races fill in the gap next until the Drivers parade was done. There was a lady marshall who was antagonizing the crowd with her Alonso flag in the build up to this. Obviously Alonso isn’t the most popular driver in Brazil after the goings on of the German GP!



After the drivers parade we were treated to quite a special couple of laps from Emerson Fittipaldi. He did a few laps in his title winning Lotus 72 which was rather cool!


The race eventually got going and it was kinda cool to see drivers fight their way past Hulkenberg, and there was quite an interesting scrap for the lower places. But the race itself wasn’t the most interesting really, and there was a missed opportunity for a really interesting finish with the safety car. There were too many lapped cars in the way which meant there was too big a gap inbetween drivers, and Alonso couldn’t quite catch Webber at the end unfortunately. The crowd was also rather subdued, they were very much for Massa and Barrichello, and when luck didn’t go their way they didn’t seem so interested. That said, I kinda went to cheer when Button got past Massa after their pitstops, but stopped myself half way through, realising where I was!



The heat was really difficult to contend with, sitting in the sun all day. I managed to avoid sunburn aside from a slight amount on the back of my hands, but staying hydrated and cool was tough. I’m gonna have to acclimatize pretty quickly as it wasn’t even that hot then, only 25c. Many places that I’ll visit soon may well be 10 degrees hotter!


After the race we once again made it back to the hotel in sharp fashion and after a quick shower we went out to watch some football in a bar and get some food. Sao Paulo were playing Corinthians in quite a big derby. Renato supports Sao Paulo and unfortunately they lost. There were some quite big names on show though, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos play for Corinthians and Ricardo Oliveira formerly of Milan plays for Sao Paulo. Anyway we had some food a few beers and watched the start of another game before heading back to the hotel to crash after a rather long day.